BE LIKE THE (FULL) MOON

Tomorrow is a National Holiday in Thailand, Asahna Bucha Day, it is a Buddhist Full Moon Celebration.

The villagers that work with WoC, however, are not all Buddhist; some are Buddhist, some are Christian and some are what is referred to as the “Traditional” religion, or Animist.

Tomorrow, the village will come together to celebrate and pray to the Full Moon. Perceived secular separations are cast aside. “We will pray to all the gods, all are respected and noble, ” explains Like Yu, my housemate, colleague and friend.

As a child growing up in a remote village in Burma, one so remote that he notes, “the missionaries couldn’t be bothered to come all the way out to us,” hence his “Traditional” religion, Like Yu was taught to respect the Moon and to strive to be beautiful and peaceful like the Moon.

“The Moon gives light to all the people, we should be like that.”

As honorable and poetic as that is, there exists practical reasons for the respect of the Moon.

Before calendars came into existence in this part of the world, it was the Moon that not only guided travelers with its abundant luster but provided a benchmark in the sky for the length of a journey. The Moon above your home was your silent but vigilant counterpart as it tracked ones pregnancy and finally marked the birth, only with its shape and number as a token for future birthday celebrations.

Like Yu continued with the slightest bit of disappointment in his voice, “Now that we have calendars, people tend to ignore the importance of the Moon.”

We are all intrinsically connected to the Moon; our practical bodies and our poetic souls.

No wonder why the Full Moon Celebration transcends all religions in the village.

The Moon connects us to the passing of time which bestows on us wisdom and the gift of change and growth. Acknowledging our own time passing simultaneously with that of the Moon reflects our oneness with the Universe. The collaboration of these gestures, time and Universality, brings us on a worthy journey to living in the present moment. All of us, connected as one.

When you look up to the Full Moon, allow it to be a guide on a journey to the present moment where we are all one.